Monday, May 27, 2013

"SERGEI EISENSTEIN'S BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN
With THE Original Meisel Orchestral Score
From the Series "The Year 1905"
Odessa - 1905. Enraged with the deplorable conditions on board
the armored cruiser Potemkin, the ship's loyal crew contemplates the
unthinkable - mutiny.
Seizing control of the Potemkin and raising the red flag of revolution,
the sailors' revolt becomes the rallying point for a Russian populace
ground under the boot heels of the Czar's Cossacks. When ruthless White
Russian cavalry arrives to crush the rebellion on the sandstone Odessa
Steps, the most famous and most quoted film sequence in cinema history
is born.
For eight decades, Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 masterpiece has
remained the most influential silent film of all time. Yet each
successive generation has seen BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN subjected to
censorship and recutting, its unforgettable power diluted in
unauthorized public domain editions from dubious sources. Until now.
Kino is proud to join the Deutsche Kinematek in association with
Russia's Goskinofilm, the British Film Institute, Bundesfilm Archive
Berlin, and the Munich Film Museum in presenting this all new
restoration of BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN. Dozens of missing shots have been
replaced, and all 146 title cards restored to Eisenstein's
specifications. Edmund Meisel's definitive 1926 score, magnificently
rendered by the 55-piece Deutches Filmorchestra in 5.1 Stereo Surround,
returns Eisenstein's masterwork to a form as close to its creator's bold
vision as has been seen since the film's triumphant 1925 Moscow
premiere."

Sunday, May 26, 2013

"The Quiet American is an anti-war novel by British author Graham Greene, first published in United Kingdom in 1955 and in the United States in 1956. It was adapted into films in 1958 and 2002. The book draws on Greene's experiences as a war correspondent for The Times and Le Figaro in French Indochina 1951–1954. He was apparently inspired to write The Quiet American in October 1951 while driving back to Saigon from Ben Tre province. He was accompanied by an American aid worker who lectured him about finding a “third force in Vietnam”.

Graham Greene's allegorical novel about
America's role in the Vietnam conflict, and how it was perceived by the rest of
the world, is brought to the screen for the second time in this adaptation
directed by Phillip Noyce. Thomas Fowler (Michael Caine) is a British journalist
who in 1952 is covering the early stages of the war in Indo-China for the
London Times, not a demanding assignment since few in England are especially
interested in the conflict. When not filing occasional reports, Fowler spends
his time with Phuong (Do Thi Hai Yen), a beautiful woman who shares lovemaking
and opium with Fowler and is willing to accept the fact the married journalist
will never make her his wife.

Shepherd: Tell me then Moses
Who is more bewildered?
You or I?
I do not fear myth or Satan
Nor blasphemy nor faith
Nor flames nor separation
Nor tomorrow nor death
Nor drinking from a cup of wine
I know God better than you
I know you better than God
God is different than you think
God never wants to be God
God doesn’t want to be a playing in your hands
He never wants to inspire fear
Fear Of him I do not have
Fear Of him I do not have
Fear from such thoughts I do not have
Oh God I fear only
To harm another
I do not have quarrel with anyone
Nor does have anyone with me

Nilofar Shidmehr was born and raised in Iran, and has lived in Canada since
1997. She holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of
British Columbia and is currently working on her PhD at the Center for Cross
Faculty Inquiry in Education. Her work has been featured in both Iranian and
Canadian literary magazines, including Descant, A Room of One’s Own, West
Coast Line, Galleon, and the Shahrvand, a widely-read Iranian
newspaper published in Toronto and Vancouver.

If I had my life to live over,
I'd dare to make more mistakes next time.
I'd relax,
I would limber up.
I would be sillier than I have been this trip.
I would take fewer things seriously.
I would take more chances.
I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers.
I would eat more ice cream and less beans.
I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I'd have fewer imaginary ones.
You see, I'm one of those people who lived sensibly and sanely,
hour after hour,
day after day.
Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it over again, I'd have more of them.
In fact, I'd try to have nothing else.
Just moments,
one after another,
instead of living so many years ahead of each day.
I've been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer,
a hot water bottle,
a raincoat
and a parachute.
If I had to do it again,
I would travel lighter than I have.
If I had my life to live over,
I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall.
I would go to more dances.
I would ride more merry-go-rounds.
I would pick more daisies.